14 facilities proposed for closure in Quinn austerity budget

Gov. Pat Quinn wants to close the supermaximum-security prison near Tamms, a women’s prison in Dwight, two juvenile prisons and six halfway houses as part of an austerity budget he will unveil Wednesday. Follow and chat about Quinn's speech here at noon.

Gov. Pat Quinn wants to close the supermaximum-security prison near Tamms, a women’s prison in Dwight, two juvenile prisons and six halfway houses as part of an austerity budget he will unveil Wednesday.

The medium-security Logan Correctional Center, which Quinn had proposed closing last year, instead would house female inmates from Dwight. The Lincoln Correctional Center would be converted from a women’s prison to a men’s prison.

In addition to prison closures, Quinn wants to close four mental health facilities next year, along with two institutions for the developmentally disabled -- including the Jacksonville Developmental Center, as previously announced -- and consolidate dozens of state agency field offices.

Altogether, more than 1,160 jobs would be eliminated because of the closures and consolidations, according to administration documents. If the governor’s plan is adopted, Quinn will have taken the state workforce from 54,539 employees when he took office in January 2009 to 51,561 by the end of the next fiscal year on June 30, 2013.

The 14 facility closures are estimated to save $100 million annually.

The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum and other state historic sites also would see reduced hours.

The museum could "possibly" close up to two days per week during "non-peak seasons," according to the governor's budget documents. Details on which days it would be closed and during which months were not available Tuesday night.

Overall, state general fund spending would go from $33.73 billion in the current budget year to $33.78 billion next year under Quinn’s proposal.

Quinn’s aides said agency budgets, which do not include pension payments required by law, would be reduced from $25.73 billion in fiscal year 2008 to $24.83 billion in fiscal year 2013 under Quinn’s proposal.

The Senate Republicans’ budget negotiator, however, rejected the idea that spending would be cut under the proposed budget.

“The idea that somehow the idea that fiscal responsibility has come to the Quinn administration is patently false,” said state Sen. Matt Murphy, R-Palatine.

No details on pensions, Medicaid

While Quinn will lay out details of the proposed closures in his speech, which he will deliver at noon today in the Illinois House chamber, he will not lay out details of his plans to address two other major budget issues – state pension costs and Medicaid expenses.

At a briefing Tuesday, Lavin said details of those plans are still under negotiation.

Page 2 of 5 - Medicaid spending is to remain flat in the budget, but that would mean finding $2.7 billion in savings to prevent the state’s backlog of Medicaid bills from climbing to nearly $5 billion by the end of the next budget year.

Options under discussion include changing Medicaid eligibility, reducing rates paid to Medicaid providers and eliminating some Medicaid services not required by the federal government. State officials will also work on moving Medicaid recipients into managed care programs to cut costs.

Quinn previously has endorsed the idea of shifting some pension costs from the state to universities and local school districts. How much of that burden would be shifted and how quickly are still being negotiated. The possibility of employees contributing more for their pensions is also under negotiation.

“Some of the employers are not directly responsible for the cost of paying for retirement benefits,” Jerry Stermer, Quinn’s senior adviser, said, referring to the state’s school districts.

Prison closings

The Tamms supermax is targeted for closure because it costs more to house inmates there than at any other state prison.

“We will not jeopardize public safety,” Lavin said. “It’s an inefficient facility.”

Tamms inmates, among the state’s most disruptive and violent, now are locked up 23 hours a day. They would be transferred to the Pontiac Correctional Center, but it would be up to the Department of Corrections to determine how they will be confined there, said Quinn budget director David Vaught.

Six of seven halfway houses – formally known as adult transition centers -- including one in Peoria, would also close. Those inmates instead would be equipped with electronic devices that would allow prison authorities to monitor their activities. Lavin said transition center inmates are considered low-level offenders.

But Anders Lindall, a spokesman for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, said the proposal raises public safety questions.

"The state's approximately 350 parole agents are already severely strained by their responsibility to monitor some 30,000 parolees," Lindall said.

Lavin raised the possibility that a private firm could purchase the vacant state-owned facilities.

Lindall called Tamms and Dwight "irreplaceable" in the state's stressed prison system.

"Closing them would trigger a dangerous domino effect, destablizing the entire correctional system and complicating an overcrowding epidemic that the Quinn Administration has tried to cover up by misrepresenting prison capacity limits," Lindall said.

Lavin told reporters that the number of inmates in the system is dropping, not increasing.

‘No new money’ except for pensions

Vaught said the closures are fallout from the state’s crushing pension costs. State revenues are expected to increase by $720 million in the next budget, but pension costs alone are supposed to increase by $1 billion.

Page 3 of 5 - “In the rest of the budget, we suffer the squeeze,” Vaught said. “There is no new money for anything else. Everybody in the state is going to be affected by this downsizing of state government.”

Most state agencies were directed to cut their budget requests by 9 percent.

All Illinois State Police district offices would remain open under Quinn’s budget, but 16 communications centers would be combined into four, including one in Springfield.

The Department of Human Services would eliminate two dozen of the 90 local offices it runs. Those offices provide initial determination of someone’s eligibility for state assistance. Vaught said the offices to be closed do not get much business. DHS offices in Macoupin, Mason and Greene counties are among those slated for consolidation.

The governor’s proposed budget would not do much to eliminate more than $8 billion in already outstanding bills. Quinn will not propose borrowing money to pay those bills as he has in the past, his aides said.

However, Quinn does want to spend $3 billion for new capital programs, $1 billion each for school construction, water projects and replacing aging and broken-down state buildings. Vaught said a new revenue source -- one that would generate $300 million a year -- needs to be found in order to sell bonds to back those projects. When reporters raised the idea of an increased cigarette tax, a proposal backed by Senate President John Cullerton in recent years but rejected by the Illinois House, Vaught said that it could potentially be used for such projects or to deal with the state's Medicaid shortfall.

Doug Finke can be reached at 788-1527. Chris Wetterich can be reached at 788-1523. Staff writer David Thomas contributed to this report.

Quinn will propose closing six of Illinois’ seven adult transitional facilities and two state prisons. The transition facilities help prison inmates return to society, offering such programs as GED training, anger management, and counseling].

The state has six maximum-security prisons, of which Quinn will propose closing the one in Dwight, a women’s prison. He also wants to close the state’s sole “supermax” prison near Tamms, which is designed to hold the prison system’s most disruptive, violent and problematic offenders.

Quinn will propose closing two of Illinois’ nine psychiatric hospitals, one in Tinley Park and Singer Mental Health Center in Rockford. Tinley Park’s closure had been previously announced. The hospitals serve adults who need treatment for mental illness or a secure environment to receive court-ordered treatment.

Quinn also wants to close two of the state’s eight developmental centers, which serve people with developmental disabilities who also have severe medical or behavioral needs. Quinn previously called for closure of the Jacksonville Developmental Center; the second proposed closure is the Murray Developmental Center.